Maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit

As I wait for the year to end, with a mix of trepidation and dreariness, I try to gather my thoughts before they blow up like fireworks. It's been a hell of a month, and I chose to stay away from this empty page where words would have collided and bounced between invisible walls, not padded enough to slow them down. There are days that I am so much, even for myself. An ongoing struggle, but still alive. But this too shall pass, and I may be finally ready to put my foot down and say Enough.

However this is a fitness related blog and the musings of my troubled noggin are for my therapist instead. I haven't seen one in 5 years, but I may need to go back for a reboot of sorts. We shall see... for now I am still putting all my hopes into the running therapy that I should be able to start again on January 1st.

Speaking of which, there is a slight chance that does not happen, and I am not trying to be pessimistic for no reason, but my body decided to give me one more challenge just because it can. On Dec 26, also the day of my 17th wedding anniversary, I decided to brave the crowds and go to Yorkdale Mall for a trip to Lululemon to spend a gift card that one of my friends had bought for me earlier this year. The trip was somewhat successful, in the fact that I spent out of my pocket only $75 bucks, between one new Scuba Hoodie and a onesie from Bluenotes. A what? Yes, you heard me right - a onesie. Or a cowsie to be more precise.

I came back home, changed into my new outfit, had lunch and selfied with hubbs for the official anniversary photo. So far so good.

Then I sat down and watched a movie... and out of the blue, an hour or two later, my ankle started hurting like mad. I could not put the foot down, ouch ouch ouch, and I kept limping around for the rest of the day. I can only take a guess about what happened... maybe something in my foot got a cramp from driving around, or maybe I got off the couch on the wrong foot so to speak, or there was an evil intervention, whatever. It just happened. I iced, I elevated, took Ibuprofen... Still limping 3 days later. Of course it didn't help that I walked 5km on it on Saturday, but I had no choice, I had promised to take my family downtown to see the pretty Chrismas lights. Now it seems to be getting better for sure, but it's a slooooooow process. #FML.

Let's see what else happened since the last time I dumped my thoughts on this blog...

-Strength training has been going OK, and I know that I am getting stronger, but my butt cheeks and arms are also getting bigger. I have been having a hard time to find pants and shirts that fit. I try to fit in at least 2 to 3 sessions of 30min strength training a week.

-Weight has also been going steadily up and once I reached 145lb I hit the PANIC button and signed up for nutrition coaching with the lovely Georgie Fear, whose book "The Racing Weight Cookbook" has been an eye opener that you don't need a Whole 30-Paleo-no sugar-high fat-low carb diet to be happy and lose weight. All you need is good, healthy, sustainable habits for the rest of your life. Official program starts on Jan 5, but I have been enjoying a few 1:1 free coaching weeks with Brandice for now. It's been great. I already mastered the habit of having veggies with both lunch and dinner and now I am working on a habit of having at least 20-30g of protein with every breakfast. Go me!!

-Biking has been going well too, with 1-2 sessions of 1.5h a week of pretty hard trainer workouts, either with the triathlon club or with Trainer Road in my Pain Cave. Not much to report, but I feel that I could bump up my FTP again... Will wait until the heart rate goes down again though... still not liking to do my VO2max intervals around 190bpm. If you are curious, check out my TR Career page.

-Swimming... well, it's there, when I find the motivation to go. I've been going religiously every Sunday morning at 7am with the club for 1h, but Tuesday nights have been rather hit and miss. It doesn't help that my new job drains me of every ounce of energy that I have, but that's what I get for being a bigger boss. Not complaining, nope nope nope.

-I also go for walks whenever I can to let my thoughts breathe... Inhale. Exhale. Keep it Zen, shake it out, don't let the screws get too lose. Or something like that. I even meditated once, but thankfully I was in my bed when that happened.

What else??

I finally got to try Osmo Nutrition, after hearing the glowing reviews from all over the Interwebz. Unfortunately I could not use the Acute Recovery formula because it's based on milk protein (damn you dairy allergy!), but the Preload and Active Hydration have been doing the trick! Most surprising has been the Active Hydration mix - I thought that I would hate the Mango taste, but it's actually very light and I even liked it, whereas the Preload has more of an acquired taste even though it was supposed to be more familiar.

We'll see how it goes, but I don't have any concerns for now about the product. Most likely I will write a more detailed review once I finish the containers. ;-)

Another notable bit of news is that I made the Coeur Ambassador Team again this year. My jaw just about dropped when I saw the news. I've always considered myself an underdog, and I probably won't have the answer as to "why me", but it made me very very happy and I could not be more grateful to Kebby and Hailey for trusting me to spread my #heartandcourage around. I am looking forward to sharing the Coeur colors with my friend Carol who also made the team. Two crazy Canucks rocking the #stylishspeed hashtag, watch out world.

With this update, my friends, and to quote the lovely and talented Allie Brosh, maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit after all.

I have a few challenging races lined up for the 2015 season, rockstar friends who continue to fill my life with sweaty smiles and good cheer, I am working with people who I fully trust to make me stronger, faster, leaner - and have a successful comeback to all things source of endorphins. I have the most amazing husband and kids, a new and challenging career, and enough gear to last me a few good years. It can only go up from here. Yippee ki yay, motherf*ers.

Taking it easy

Almost a week has passed since my last race, the Goodlife Toronto Half Marathon and under orders from my coach, I did my best to stay put. Thankfully there has been enough excitement this week to keep me from going cuckoo. Here's a little update, with pictures, because I can't keep my phone away. It's like having a third eye, minus the wisdom.

As expected, Monday was slow. Woke up to very achy quads and hubbs suggested that I take some Advil. Oh the miracle, I found 3 gelcaps in a bottle, enough to last me the day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yum. I think they helped, mostly with going up and down the stairs without screaming Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Whenever I'd find myself near the backyard, I'd go out and take a peek. For the first time ever, I have a flower bed and stuff is coming out of it! Living things, that I planted last fall and never thought they would survive the winter, with my luck and all. Since then, there are a lot more tulips in bloom, red and yellow ones.

Nature in progress

So that is going pretty well as you can see. Also, my baby Katsura tree is more beautiful than ever, in its third year of growing roots in my backyard. Since I am such a good mom, here I was giving it water because it was thirsty, and it smiled back with a rainbow.

Can I have a Unicorn with that?

It is a safe thing to say that aside from looking at the pretty flowers and rainbows (and my computer screen), I did nothing all day on Monday. A true lazy bum. On Tuesday, I picked up the pace, so to speak, which meant getting out of the house. The mission was to make it downtown Brampton with my camera and take pictures of the cherry blossoms. I started by going to Target to pick up a chess game to play with my sons, after they proudly announced that they have mastered the rules and it's now time for some face to face action.
After completing my mission of finding a decent looking chess board, I started making my way towards the cherry blossoms, one or two kms north on the Etobicoke Creek Trail. Hint, there is a creek running along it. I took a small break to retrieve a geocache and pause my thoughts for a bit.

Unfortunately, since the mosquitoes were already out and ready for a bloodbath, I decided to leave my reverie and continue on the path, onto safer grounds. Stopped for another cache, but after 20 minutes of turning over rocks under a bridge, I decided to give up. Too many possibilities, my patience ran away.
Eventually I found the Sakura and they were as beautiful as I had imagined. You definitely cannot compare them with those from High Park in Toronto, but they were good enough to lift my spirits and inspire me to take a few pictures.

It was all worth it. After I got tired of snapping away, I went for one last geocache, on the other side of the creek, inside a wooden area. It was quite fun, until I noticed prints on the ground. A lot of them. Not human. They didn't look like deer, they didn't look like raccoon, but something scarier, and rather BIG. I am no expert in wilderness, but I'll take a guess and say coyote. I decided to GET THE HELL OUT as quickly as I could.

For sure that got my heart racing. I am such a baby when it comes to facing anything that's faster than me and has long and sharp teeth. After feeling pavement under my feet again, I walked back to my car and returned to safety, aka curled up in a ball in my bed. Workout : almost 5k walk and a near cardiac arrest to make it count.

In the evening, I went back to the pool, for more pull. Did a repeat of Sunday night, swam until I was too dizzy to count the laps. On Wednesday I went for massage therapy and it was a beautiful sufferfest. Nuff said. He knows what he's doing, so I trust this man to give me new legs every single time. Came out of there refreshed and to prove it, took my bike out for a spin in the evening, my second outdoor ride this year. A very straightforward out and back, and seeing how I was zooming on my way out of the house, I figured that it was not going to be that easy coming back. Indeed, a fierce wind made the second half totally miserable. However, 25k in the bank, I did not complain. It needed to be done, it was on the schedule after all.

And then Thursday came and I woke up with no pain at all in my legs. That was the signal that I could run again. In the morning I had to go to a job interview (oh yes, things have started moving, hallelujah! Two more interviews next week!), which went very well. I was feeling quite joyful the whole day, so I put on my shorty shorts (another first!) and went for a 6k run, a quick and easy one, right? What I had not anticipated was that by the time I went out, there were already 27-28 degrees C, which made the day August material. With no water, I quickly got thirsty and the entire workout was a countdown to me drinking a tall, cold glass of water in the shade. I think it also made it faster than what I had planned, oh well, I didn't die and my legs didn't complain either.

Cooling down with a stretch and lots of water

Yellow as far as you can see. Thankfully I have no allergies.

And with another swim in the evening, the loop is now looped. I have reached the end of another hard week of training and racing and I can rest my bum on the good ol' couch, while I apply to jobs and enjoy the time off. Soon, I know that the madness will start again and I'm going to beg for 5 minutes of laziness.

UPDATE: Some people told me that those prints in the mud are rather those of a big dog, like a Great Dane or similar. What do you think?

PS. Totally unrelated: check out my Bling-bling page, new with my medal and race shirt collection. ;-)

Recovery week

Little by little, the excitement dies... But that's a good thing, training should also follow its circadian rhythm. I definitely need to rest for a little while, all this marathon training has been taking a large place in my daily focus and now it's time to shift this focus towards other goals. The next challenge is the Ride for Heart 50K on June 3rd, followed by my first olympic triathlon on July 22nd, then the marathon training returns for Scotiabank Toronto Marathon on October 14. So in the next 2-3 months I plan to increase my swimming and biking activities while keeping an active running base. Coach will sure know how to steer my training towards these new challenges and I can't wait!

This week I have been in recovery mode, lots of walks, a short 20 min run yesterday and a 1.5km swim on Friday. Swimming went really well, I am not sure how my technique held, but it seemed that I put on the turbo. I managed to do my first km in 28:56, the fastest time so far with 750m in pull. Then I did another 500m, with the last 250m without a pull buoy. I need to do something about the sinking bum, but I suspect that my fitness should improve the more I swim, so hopefully I won't feel so exhausted when I increase my kicking soon.

Yesterday's recovery run started pretty slow, legs were heavy, but after the first km them too remembered how to move faster. I run with my hubbs and ended at Tim Hortons for coffee, that was really great because it was pretty hot and I was dripping sweat from my ears. Summer is definitely pointing its nose around here.

Today was also a gorgeous day and I just couldn't wait to go out for a bike ride. Coach said to go for 45min easy, but once I started spinning those wheels, it was hard to slow them down and went all out for 1h of sustained effort up and down the country side of my hood, which felt more like a double up because of the strong head wind on my way back down. I managed to squeeze in 25km during which my 25yr old granny hybrid bike and my marathon legs passed 3 cyclists on their fancy carbon roadies and cleats. I do wonder how my ride will change once I join the club of thin tires and hard soles. I need to make a decision real soon, but it's the spending money part that keeps me from doing it.

Well, after all the trisport reports, it's time to end this blog post. I will leave you with a food triptych from this past week = homemade lasagna for recovery, salmon and broccoli for the lean dinners, egg whites and cheese to boost up the mornings. I am hungry all of a sudden.